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Summary: History of Modern Art Chapter 7
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Summary of the book: History of Modern Art by Arnason & Mansfield, H7.
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Summary Arnason Chapter 7 - Cubism:- 1910: progressive artists were abandoning the tradition of naturalism that had
guided the visual arts since the Renaissance.
- For most artists in the early 20th century, abstraction was a means of distilling to its
essential qualities a form observed in the real world. This ‘weak’ abstraction
demanded from artists the same level of engagement with nature and visual
phenomena required since the Renaissance.
- Cubism reveals the degree to which modern artists were conscious of their
relationship to artistic conventions born in the Renaissance. A form of weak
abstraction, Cubism maintained an emphatic hold on the physical world. Cubists
questioned the means by which this reality was understood and represented.
- Henri Bergson, book: Matter and Memory: no rational being can ever experience a
single instant of time. Perception was also an experience of duration, leading artists
like the Cubists to create artworks addressed to this model.
- The invention of Cubism was a collaborative affair, and the relationship between
Picasso and Braque was the most significant of its kind in the history of art.
Immersed in Tradition: Picasso’s Early Career – Barcelona and Madrid:
- Pablo Picasso identified himself as a Catalan.
- He studied in Barcelona and Madrid, where he admired the Old Masters. In
Barcelona, the latest artistic trend was ‘modernista’, a provincial variation on Art
Nouveau and Symbolism, which left its mark on Picasso’s early work. Picasso’s
preoccupation with poverty and mortality was to surface more overtly in the work of
his so-called Blue Period.
Blue and Rose Periods:
- 1900: one of Picasso’s paintings was selected to hang in the Spanish Pavilion of the
Universal Exposition in Paris. Berthe Weill sold the first major painting he made in
Paris, Le Moulin de la Galette: tenebrist scene typical of much Spanish art at the time.
- 1901-1904: His friend shot himself and Picasso turned to a Blue Period, in which he
used a predominantly blue palette in many works, expressing human misery. The
history of Spanish religious painting found echoes in these works, with its emphasis
on mourning and physical torment, as to be seen in La Vie. The woman on the right is
heavenly draped, giving her the appearance of a Madonna.
- Picasso moved to Paris in 1904 where he made: Woman with a Crow, a pastel. This
characterizes the next phase of Picasso’s work, the Rose Period.
- 1905, 1906: Picasso was preoccupied with the subject of acrobatic performers, called
Saltimbanques, dressed like characters from commedia dell’arte. Like his predecessor
Daumier, Picasso chose not to depict the performers during the acrobatics but during
moments of rest: Family of Saltimbanques. The background is gained in mystery for it
does not contain any details. The acrobats barely take note of one another.
- Picasso’s circle of admirers grew, one of these was American writer Gertrude Stein
who was building one of the foremost collections of contemporary art in Paris. She
introduced him to Matisse, whose work she was collecting. Picasso depicted her in a
pose, unconventional for women, her face has a mask-like character.
- 1905: Picasso’s figures had taken on a sense of beauty that suggests an influence
from ancient Greek white-ground vase paintings. In this period, he mostly painted
, nudes: Two Nudes, a mysterious composition, inspired by an exhibition on Iberian
sculpture. Also Gauguin’s influence can be seen here; the Louvre had an exhibition at
that time of Gauguin.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon:
- Les Demoiselles d’Avignon has been called the single most important painting of the
20th century. It is seen as a powerful example of expressionist art.
- The five ladies represent prostitutes from Avignon Street in Barcelona’s red-light
district. The subject of prostitution had earned a prominent place in avant-garde art
of the 19th century. Artistic activity was often associated with sexuality by modern
artists and critics, making prostitutes an especially compelling subject.
- Comparing this to Two Nudes, the anatomies of this painting seem flattened and
simplified, reduced to a series of interlocking, angular shapes. Even the draperies are
hardened. The painted masks are most shocking.
- This painting evolved over several months, Picasso prepared his work by executing
dozens of drawings, in which we can observe his progress.
- The female nude became a site for anxious projections of personal and cultural fears.
- Colonialism was already highly criticized at that time in France, which caused division
among the people. Picasso’s Demoiselles can be seen to emanate from this broader
cultural uncertainty.
- Picasso had different radical paintings in mind when creating Demoiselles: Le
Bonheur de Vivre and Blue Nude by Matisse among others. Cézanne was important
too. Very obvious too, is the influence of African and Oceanic sculptures and masks
that Picasso had recently visited. When he added the women’s mask-like visages he
used dark hues and rough hatch marks that appear as scarification marks on African
masks.
Beyond Fauvism: Braque’s Early Career:
- Most of Picasso’s supporters were horrified when seeing Demoiselles. It had direct
consequences for Braque’s art.
- Braque grew up in Normandy where he befriended Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz who
became associates of the Fauve painters. He was educated as a housepainter and a
decorator; the decorative effects in his paintings were the result of this.
- 1905: Braque was impressed by the works of Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck at the
Salon where Fauvism made its debut he turned to a bright, Fauve-inspired pallet.
In this period, he probably met Picasso. Braque developed his own distinctive palette:
Viaduct at L’Estaque, very much constructed scenery, patches of colour. He built his
forms up toward a high horizon line and framed them within arching trees, a
favourite device of Cézanne called Cézannism.
- When seeing Picasso’s Demoiselles, Braque started depicting the human form: Large
Nude, depicts a move away from Fauvism. He wasn’t interested in the sexualized
themes of Picasso’s painting; he wanted to create a new sort of beauty, in terms of
volume, line, mass and weight.
- After the fall of 1907, a transformation took place: Houses at L’Estaque comparing to
Viaduct at L’Estaque: simplified, geometric structures, not receding into depth.
- Cézanne built his entire organization of surface and depth from his colour but
Braque subordinates colour in order to focus on pictorial structure.
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